It’s happened more times than I can count. I’m in the middle of a sentence. I come across a word that I don’t know how to pronounce. I stumble over the word.

My housemates lean forward in anticipation. They can smell blood, like circling sharks.

I summon up the courage, I utter the word.

Almost immediately, the room descends into hysterical laughter.

English. It’s a bastard.

It happens quite often. As it happens, most of my vocabulary has come from years of reading books or playing video games in my childhood. I normally come across new words and phrases this way long before I hear them in conversation. This lends itself to quite a few unfortunate, but hilarious, situations. None more so than at university. Having lived with five lads for nearly two years, my pronunciation was exposed quite often much to their amusement.

The English language is a minefield. Historians would have me blaming the likes of Julius Caesar and William the Conqueror for polluting English with their Latin and French ways. But even taking that into consideration, English seems uniquely suited to tripping up poor souls like me.

I’ve had a laugh compiling this list, I’m sure you will too. Here’s a select few howlers from yours truly.

Creme Egg

For some reason, I thought that Cadbury’s Creme Egg had an accent over the last letter. Cue much hilarity when I called it a ‘crem-ie egg’ in front of pretty much all of my mates.

Morecambe

The town somehow came up during conversation. I called it ‘more-cam-beh’. ‘Nuff said. Also applies to the comedy duo Morecambe and Wise.

Spectacular and Speculation

This is special, even by my standards. I managed to conflate it once. ‘Spectaculation’. That’ll catch on with football commentators, trust me.

Czech Republic

‘Kek’ Republic. I know, I’ve no idea where that came from. This duly embarrassed me when I was playing football with my mates during Euro 2004, where the mighty Czechs with Jan Koller, Milan Baros and Pavel Nedved were at the height of their powers. A game of singles where each of us had to chose a team. I was last, all the good ones had been taken. Czech Republic was the only one left. Still, they were better than Latvia.

Hughes

‘Hugs’. An oldie, but a goodie. I used that pronunciation for a secondary school classmate of mine with that particular surname. It’s a wonder they knew who I was talking about.

Doubt

Silent ‘b’. I never knew about any silent ‘b’ when I was commenting on a footballer’s availability for the next Premier League fixture.

Corona

Mexican beer. I pronounced it coro-nah. Turns out it’s Co-rone-nah. Wish I knew that before ordering a Corona from a bewildered bartender in Malia who obviously had no idea what I was on about.

Ruud Gullit

Is it Gullitt, or is it Hullitt? I don’t care. I’ve had enough of him to last me a lifetime. There’s a special place in hell reserved just for his name alone.

Aaaand that’s it.

I’m sure that you all have plenty of anecdotes in this particular area. Or am I alone in thinking English is the worst thing ever invented? I’d love to know all about your experiences in navigating the minefield that is the Queen’s English.

Callum Fox is walking the divide between the hearing and deaf worlds. Profoundly deaf since birth and CI user. In his spare time he balances being 22 years old, being a football fanatic and trying to make it as a writer, journalist and human being. Follow him on Twitter as @WalkTheDivide

As I have pointed out to hearing people many times, if I can’t hear it then how the epithet am I supposed to know how to pronounce it? As far as I am concerned it’s laughing at the lame man’s limp. He can’t help it and neither can we help our verbal limping. Same thing different context.
I came across a beauty the other day, on TV now less. Magdalen College, Cambridge is in fact pronounced Mawdlen College. Well, well, after all these years I can still be surprised.

Some of the most spectacular examples of obscure pronunciations are in “posh” surnames. I sometimes think that hardly any of the aristocracy pronounce their name as it is spelt! Lord Home is pronounced Hume. Lady Featherstonehaugh is Fanshaw. Villiers is Villers. There are loads like that all traps for the unwary deaf journo.

My ex worked in a large retail store, lots of cheques every day. Their training required them to always address the customer by name and to thank them. So it was one day she had occasion to say “Thank you Mrs Bastard”. The woman got quite stroppy. She said “It’s pronounced B’stard if you don’t mind” and swep’ off. Another one of those is Death. It’s De Ath and some people spell it like that. Also Onions. Some people really are called Onions and some people are called O’nions. Always check.

My crowning glory came in the middle of an agricultural show (nudge,nudge great place for freelances) when I was asked to take a picture of the winner of the Charolais class. A Mr Daft. So here I was toddling up and down the lines of cows asking “Mr Daft? Mr Daft?”. When I found him he was leading a large cow, he he was quite angry. Turns out it is pronounced Dafft as in daffodils. Not Daft as in barmy. He really didn’t go much on that. “I’M not Darft!” He bellowed “I’m Dafft”.
OK, OK just get the picture and get outta there….

LOOL! Oh Callum! This gave me such a laugh this morning, thank you! I find it so hilarious because i know exactly what you are talking about – i have experienced it and still do and i completely agree – the English language is a minefield! Like you, i grew up knowing most of the words i do from books – i was a true bookworm going through 10-15books a week! – long before i ever heard them, so i pronounced them just the way they were written! It is only in recent years that my pronounciation has improved, largely thanks to my post-uni friends who are a blessing! Then i did 10weeks of speech therapy which also helped a great deal and i learnt about the silent ‘th’ words i never knew existed! So many words i still trip up on but at least not as bad as previous years! My favs are: amateur, entrepreneur, Google (still cant get this right!) and Author.

The challenges deaf people face vary greatly depending on where they were born in the world.

The English language is a minefield but I think it’s still easier for deaf ears to comprehend than, for example, French where most of the letters are not pronounced or are lost in the rhythm. Having said that, English is probably changing more rapidly than French which might make it harder for us to keep up with changes.

Finnish is a beast of a language for foreigners to learn but it has three great qualities if you’re deaf: 1) words are pronounced >exactly< as they are written, 2) even the timing is indicated (o is half as long as oo for example) and 3) the language revolves around vowels (which are relatively easy for the deaf to hear) more than consonants. For me this all means that I can have a very good crack at pronouncing words that I have never seen before without having a clue what they mean.

Yes – we all have nightmares too with written English!! Try to cue it to see how it is pronounced!! I mostly blame the Norman French for the dual words and quirks of the spelling variations as English is an International Language anyway!! It changes all the time as it evolves so we adapt with times!

If its any consolation, I’ve managed to spend a large portion of my life calling Liecester Square, “lie-cester” as opposed to the less intuitive (but apparently more correct) “less-cester” square. Ditto “Derbyshire” instead of “darbyshire”. And “wor-cest-er-shire” sauce, instead of the more correct “wooster” sauce. Stupid English language.

“Wor-chest-er-shire”!! I am HoH and STILL have trouble with that word, haha! Many a mishearing has caused me confusion in how to pronounce a name or word, sometimes to others’ amusement, more often to my frustration.

I am living in South Africa, town called Worcester and indeed, its pronounced “wooster”. Not funny, all resident, all folks, all people in Worcester are pronounced “wooster” correctly, Only foreiner might called “wor-cest-er-shire”. because its also pronounced in somewhere. I know in England and America does have named town Worcester. They were pronounced differ as we in South Africa. Strange, but its not incorrect.

I’ve seen many deaf people say ” calm down ” by saying the ” l ” instead of ” cam down ” which is the correct way of saying it !
Hearing people should not laugh at the deaf people who mispronounced words. They cannot help it.

Made me laugh with this comment! You aren’t the only one especially as deaf, there’s hearings struggling with it and the English language is expanding it’s no wonder we can’t keep foreign people wanting to come here out – I can’t say hating these English but to embrace it as it’s unique language! (I’ll show you example – sword, Leicester etc grrrr! Hating when my mum corrects me!)

my housemates are the same so i feel your pain…. i find myself trying to find other words for everything… to explain what i mean without making a fool of myself.
the words i cant say include thief… its a horrendous word >.< and i really cant say sport and support any differently… or tell the difference when others say it!

There’s a common thread with a lot of the examples people have given here – doubt pronounced “dout”, Worcester pronounced “Wooster”, Leicester pronounced “Lesster”, Featherstonehaugh pronounced “Fanshaw”. There’s a lot of history behind this, too long to reproduce here, but essentially in many (not all) cases, spellings preserve older pronunciations, or are derived from other languages.

The silent letters are because human beings are intrinsically lazy and will always seek to minimise the effort in producing a word, especially if it’s a mouthful like Featherstonehaugh. Think of the clipped accents of the upper class – so of course they have compressed it. But when you say something as simple as doubt, try pronouncing the “b” next to a “t”, and it becomes awkward, and takes longer to say. So it has become a silent letter. Likewise with sword – it is much easier to say the “w” in swore, because it is, so to speak “open” with a long vowel, but the d at the end of sword “closes” the word, you come up against that d and it just makes the whole pronunciation more difficult. Rather than drop the “d”, which then makes people wonder if you said “swore”, the “w” has become silent instead, but the meaning of what you have said remains clear.

There is no shame in saying “I am not sure how to pronounce this word, I have only ever seen it in print before”. Hearing people have the same problem with new words or shibboleth names like Featherstonehaugh, it just doesn’t happen so often. Encourage your hearing friends to share their own examples, then they’ll realise it’s not so funny after all.

a lot of my hearing mates, and the majority of British hearing folk don’t pronounce words correctly….having had hearing difficulties as a kid, I still say some words in my own way….which is fine with me

You know, I’m a hearing person and I still have trouble pronouncing some English words, because to me, it’s a foreign language. I can see the written word in my mind, but don’t have a clue how it’s pronounced. I guess it’s kinda the same thing for deaf people

You are truly not alone. I know this pain too well! I still can’t pronounce giraffe – ‘ger-aff’ and I’m forever confusing desert with dessert. I get muddled with private and pirate. There’s so many more, mostly on daily occurrence, but it all becomes a big blur that is life!
Laugh, its more fun than crying!! x

Gosh! That egg took a long time to hatch! It’s been interesting to review the comments of almost a year ago. After all the problem is always with us. To those of you who seethe with embarrassment on a daily basis I would offer the thought that it is not your fault. You did nothing to invite being treated like that. It is yet another of the many pinpricks that Deaf life brings with it.

English is in fact the 2nd or 3rd hardest language in the world to learn. I believe number 1 is Finnish. Funny enough, the Finns tend to speak good English!
The reason why English is so hard to learn is straightforward. It comes from many, many roots. We have shamelessly stolen, plagiarised or even the more polite, borrowed words from other languages.

Different words come from different origins and so they are spelt differently even if spoken the same! There is even a study of the origins of words, lexicography, as Coundown fans will know.

This is maddening to people who have not grown up with spoken English because they have to memorise all this. If you’ve ever swotted over French irregular verbs, remember that there are many more in English! In fact people who learn English as a second language rarely get it perfect.
That applies to a great many Deaf people too. If it is their second language then with a few talented exceptions, people will make mistakes. The fact is that all English speakers have to work at their English. Hearing children tease each other all the time about mispronounciation and of course there is no quicker way to teach kids! Deaf people don’t get that feedback and help so we get stuck in a rut with imperfect English. Unless we choose to study, of course.

As a Hearie, I’d like to just say that I and others who learnt most of our words from reading and gaming have the exact same problem. And receive little mercy from our TV educated friends. Ironically, I now teach English as a foreign language and I still panic when confronted with the dreaded “how is this word pronounced?” question. English is a nightmare.